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2014-01-25: Turn forecasting now works in Stellar Conflict

The forecasting which has proved so useful (and popular) in
War of the Dark God is now also working for Stellar Conflict.
No more missing the timing on those matter transmission transfers of
crucial resources from your gas giant mining operations!

Please see the help page on
"Forecasting" for
further information. You can also try it out in the user interface demo
by selecting one of the demo games "dragons" or "jellyfish".

2013-03-28: New edition of the COSMOS Fantasy rule book.

There is a new edition of the
COSMOS Fantasy basic game rule book,
replacing the March 2007 edition.
There are only very minor rule changes and some clarifications.
The rule book changes are detailed
here.

I have (finally) finished the forecast mechanism intended to
catch the errors in your orders that the syntax checker cannot.
It only works for the fantasy games at present.
Please see the help page on
"Forecasting" for
further information. You can also try it out in the user interface demo
by selecting one of the demo fantasy games (blue/red/green/white).

2008-09-11: Credit card option removed.

I have had to remove the option of paying by credit card directly.
Maintaining a credit card solution for the low number of transactions
at this site was getting prohibitively expensive. You can of course still
use your credit card through PayPal when paying at pbem.dk.

2008-03-21: This is a new server.

This site is now served by a new server. After a week of intermittent
breakdowns and struggling with old hardware I decided to buy a new computer
to serve the pbem.dk site and games. Hopefully everything has
now been correctly set up on the new machine (but let me know if you
encounter anything that does not work as expected).

2007-02-28: Stellar Conflict bomb/enslave simulator updated

The
Stellar Conflictbomb/enslave simulator has been updated so that now
you can easily set up the defending colony with the population and
installations of a primitive colony from the
tables of primitive
colony development. At the bottom of the "Defending colony" box
you'll find some selection boxes and a "Set up!" button which you can
use to draw data directly from the development tables. Just select the turn
of the attack, the size of the terran planet and the expected development
("maximum" being the worst case) and hit "Set up!" and the fields will be
filled.

2007-02-01: Stellar Conflict resources updated

The
Stellar Conflict
resources such as the bomb/enslave simulator, the tables of primitive
colony development and the tables of minimum fleet strength needed to destroy
primitive colonies have been cleaned up and updated to reflect the current
rules (some stuff remaining from the playtest was removed/revised).
The Stellar Conflict example game(s) in
the interface demo
were similarly updated to be consistent with the current rules.

2007-01-11: Now accepting payments though PayPal

PayPal has been added as a payment option when you
pay for your games in the "shop".
You can still select to use your credit card as always.

2006-04-09: Now out of playtest: Stellar Conflict

Everyone can now sign up to play Stellar
Conflict, the new strategic science fiction game offered at
pbem.dk.
The game is fresh out of playtest and is now offered in two versions:
A standard free-for-all game and a new team game variant
in which teams of four compete against each other. See
here for more details.

There is a new edition of the
COSMOS SciFi Stellar Conflict rule book,
replacing the play-test edition. It can be downloaded from
the document library.
There are quite a lot of changes and also a few clarifications and other
improvements.
The rule changes are detailed
here.

2006-02-10: Stellar Conflict: An online bomb/enslave attack simulator is
now available

There is now an online invasion simluator which you can use to experiment with
bomb and enslave attacks against colonies. You can
specify colony strength and fleet composition and the simulator will give
detailed statistics on your chances of success and the fate of the colony and
warships.
The simulator can be reached from the
Stellar Conflict
resources page.

2006-01-29: Stellar Conflict: Tables of primitive colony development and
needed fleet strength for bombing now available

New features have been added to the order entry page and the
order checker has been improved. There are now "Get template"
buttons on the order entry page which will give you a template
for filling in orders. The order checker will now process
break, clear, embed and insert
orders and report any errors with these. Finally, the order checker
will add additional information at the bottom of the order entry page
which shows the order status of units et cetera at the start
of the turn, after the orders you have submitted have been
given to them.

2005-05-08: New feature: "Known blubs" report

It is now possible to get a report of all known rules blurbs for
your game position by email or online on the web site. To get it,
you select "known blurbs" as the report type from the drop down menu
when ordering email or online reports from a game.

2003-09-26: Optional rules: Advanced tactics system

It is now possible to play COSMOS Fantasy games using the basic game
rules supplemented with an advanced tactics system, which
is actually just the system used in the advanced version of the game.
A stand-alone description of the advanced tactics system and how it
fits into the basic game can be downloaded from
the document library.

2003-03-24: You can now get shared event reports

In games supporting information sharing (including the interface demo
games blue, red, green and white)
you can now get a shared event report detailing all events as
seen by yourself and those you are sharing information with.
Let me know if this produces any strange results for you.

There are also a couple of new report options, one of which will give
you full descriptions of the forces you see in the event report (rather
than just the usual "A force of 200 (SI) does something"). Reports and
map notes have also been somewhat cleaned up and revised to provide more
precise information than before in certain circumstances (e.g. embarking
and disembarking forces are now shown as such, including which hex they
are embarking or disembarking into). All in all a major revision of
a lot of code so it is highly likely that a bug or two has crept in.
Let me know if you find any...

2003-03-20: Diplomatic broadcasts are now properly documented

If you ever wondered how certain veteran players managed to put
in-game messages in your turn report, taunting you and your allies,
here is the answer:
How to get diplomatic messages and
broadcasts in turn reports. This feature was somewhat documented on the
old playtest web site and that is why some players know of it already.
There are two reasons it has not been documented on this site before now:
The first reason was that the mechanism was originally implemented for
communication
between players in (snail-mail) postal games and thus every message
was filtered through the GM for content and formatting. With messages
being entered directly on the web-site until seconds before the deadline
there would be no human filter anymore, resulting in a potential for
abuse. I have decided to live with that potential as my players are
generally a responsible lot and if anyone should step out of line
I can take it up with them at that time.
The second reason was that I really wanted to implement a proper message
preview on the order entry page so you can see if you get your formatting
right. This may yet come; meanwhile you just have to be fairly
careful with any formatting codes you use.

2002-11-06: Improvement to shared map notes in COSMOS Fantasy games

Shared map notes now also include travel routes discovered by your allies.
They also now include the supplemental notes for some quest-land locations
discovered by your allies (e.g. "The Old Wizard lives here" for the tower
of the Old Wizard in case any of your alllies have visited it).

Introducing three new features to make life easier for players:
unit icons on maps,
military / questing mode only maps and
shared information maps (team maps).

If you want an instant overview of the units you can see, you can now order
a map with unit icons rather than the standard "dot" unit markings.
Such a map shows your own, allied, neutral and enemy armies as shield icons
of different colour with nation codes and approximate army size marked.
Click here to see an example.
The unit icons are documented on a new help page:
Map symbols not documented in the rules.

In COSMOS fantasy games, some of your units may be in questing mode
(as opposed to the normal military mode) and while questing may
come upon special locations or encounters. You can now order maps and
map notes which are either military mode only or questing mode
only in order to get a better overview of your options in each
arena.

If you and your allies can agree to share map information, you can now order
a shared information map directly from the pbem.dk server
rather than having to combine your separate maps manually. This is of course
ideal in a team game like War of the Dark God but can also be used
in other games where you cooperate closely with your allies. For illustration
purposes, the demo games have been set up to support shared information maps
between BK and GE and between RW and WG.
Try the interface demo.

2001-06-22: I have created a discussion group for players

I have created a group at Yahoo groups intended for players to discuss
the games available here, or to get in touch with each other to find
opponents. I will of course also answer questions posted in the group
and participate in any interesting discussions (such as on the design
of the games).
The link to the group is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COSMOS_players

2001-06-05: New game: "Throne of Cofain"

Throne of Cofain is a new
fantasy scenario designed to be a player's first introduction to the
COSMOS Fantasy game system. The scenario is however not only suitable for
learning the game system, it can also be set up in a number of different
ways to accomodate a small groups of players who wish to find out
who is really the best COSMOS player...

To encourage new players to learn the game system through "Throne of Cofain"
the following special offer applies if you have not played
a fantasy game at pbem.dk before:Play 12 turns of "Throne of Cofain" and get a 15% discount on your first
purchase of a set-up for "War of the Dark God" (the discount also
applies to the turns you buy together with the set-up).

2001-05-23: The order syntax checker has been improved

The on-line syntax checker has been vastly improved. It really tries to
check as much as it posibly can without actually processing the turn
and it gives you warnings whenever your orders look like they could be wrong.
Gone are the days when you could accidentally mix up the position to strike
and the power to use in a firestrike order...

2001-03-27: The Flagship review of "War of the Dark God" added to the site

I finally got my act together and set up a server for running my
play by email games commercially. Initially I will be offering
the fantasy wargame
War of the Dark God,
but I will soon add an introductory mini-game to make it easier for
new players to get into War of the Dark God. There are also plans for
adding a space conquest game I used to run play-by-snailmail.